My name is Jamil Chowdhary
and I am doing a life sentence for a murder I did not commit.

My story starts on 1 February
1991 when two men entered a shop at the Phoenix Green Filling Station,
Hartley Wintney, Hampshire. Inside the shop Miss Sophie Ashworth was serving
behind the counter and two boys, Raymond Kelly and Mathew Pollock were
standing infront of the counter talking to her. One of the men stood at
the cash desk whilst the second man, armed with a gun entered the shop
and gave instructions to the two boys to get down on the floor. Whilst
the robber was taking money from the till the gun was discharged. Raymond
Kelly was shot in the back and sadly died.

The events were recorded
on a 24-hour time lapse video recording from a camera mounted on the wall
behind the counter in the filling station shop. It was the Prosecutions
case that Mohammed Womiq Nazir was the robber and that I, Jamil Chowdhary
was the gunman. Nazir was in prison on another charge just six weeks after
the garage killing, awaiting trial for slashing a man whose house he'd
broken into. He was interviewed in jail and hoping to do a deal on this
charge, he hinted he could help the police with the Phoenix Green murder.
In prison, Nazir started to spin a yarn of lies and deceit to the police.
He first named his lover Marlene Thomas as his accomplice on the night
of the murder. The next person Nazir falsely accused was my flatmate Rajinder
Dhaliwal and when that didn't work, he accused Rajinder's Brother Abdul.
Both of them had alibi's. After a series of false accusations, Nazir came
up with my name. He said that I was with him that night at the Phoenix
Green Garage and that I was the gunman. He even accused me of another
murder, which the police knew I hadn't committed. When I was arrested
3 months later, I couldn't remember where I was on the night of the murder.

On the 2 April 1992, (At that time had been on remand for one year) I
was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life, with a tarriff of Twenty Years. Mohammed Nazir pleaded
guilty to robbery and was sentenced to 12 years.

I'd met Nazir in 1989
when I was in a bail hostel. He seemed all right at the time and I told
him if he was ever in my area to come and look me up. Then one night in
1991 he came to my flat and asked if he could stay for a couple of days
as he was in some kind of trouble. I didn't want to know about his troubles
but I said he could stay. He stayed a couple of weeks and then disappeared.
I never saw him again until the trial

The police's case depended
on the word of Nazir and his girlfriend, a woman who admitted that she
helped get rid of the murder weapon. The independent support came from
John Cole, who later identified me at Aldershot police station. They told
Mr Cole that he was going to do a cell identity parade, but it wasn't
an identity parade it was just me in the cell. Later Mr Cole said that
if it was a proper identity parade he couldn't have sworn that it was
me that he saw that night. In Channel 4's Trial and Error Mr Cole admitted
to David Jessel that he had been given £300 cash in a brown paper envelope
delivered by a man wearing a suit. He said that he didn't sign for it
and that all the bloke said was, "Here's £300 for helping us in the case"?

Many things in my case
weren't quite right. The fact that the witnesses who saw two men earlier
on that evening noticed that one of the men was taller then the other
and that the taller of the two was wearing a distinctive Palestinian-style
scarf like the one Nazir was wearing. John Cole and another witness Nick
Reynals stopped to help the two men, as they appeared to be looking for
a wallet that they had dropped. Nick Reynals, claimed that one of the
men was around 5'8 to 5'10. The second man who we know to be Nazir was
according to both witnesses around 5'11 to 6'0. John Cole said that the
man with the scarf round his neck was considerably taller than the other
man. I am taller than both of these men at 6'1 to 6'2 with shoes on. Another
important detail that was ignored was that of Sophie Ashworth who was
working behind the counter on the night of the shooting. Miss Ashworth
described the suspects as two white males. This would be true of Nazir,
although of mixed race he was so light skinned he looked as if he was
of European origin.

The final clue in the case
against me was when the police raided my mini-cab office and found false
number plates JAB9 which the static officer had registered within a few
miles of the murder and within minutes of it taking place. I have never
denied to the police about having those number plates. They were on the
car of my then girlfriend. Nazir and I used the car at different times.
PC Gibson's log was obviously a crucial document in the case, but it is
far from straight forward. In fact, the log seems to pose more questions
then answers. Why, for instance, should PC Gibson note the description
of the robbers as coming through at 21.00, when we know the police radio
room doesn't record the message as being sent until four minutes later?
What about the JAB9 entry which was so central to the case against me?
Or - on a busy road - the eight minutes that seems to have passed between
cars? Or the apparent variation in the layout of the entries? The biggest
problem is what isn't in the document. PC Gibson's job was to keep a comprehensive
log. However, it's not a complete record. Details are missing or destroyed.
In fact Gibson himself threw them away the next day - he said he hadn't
thought them relevant. How did the officer know which numbers were relevant,
I wasn't arrested until three months later. It was only three months later
that the police were trying to establish that JAB9 was involved and was
relevant.

At trial, the case was
completed with two statements from inmates that said I'd admitted to the
murder while I was on remand at Winchester prison. A month after my conviction
one of the inmates who testified to my so - called 'cell block confession'
came up for trial. Maurice Nedd is multiple rapist. But the judge clearly
recognized the help he'd given in my conviction when he said to Maurice
Nedd that he was lightening his sentence for the rape of 20-year old student
" to take account of his assistance.' Other inmates were put under pressure
to claim that I had made admissions to them. Letters from two inmates
claim that they were manipulated and induced to say that I had confessed
to them.

Marlene's evidence was
damning as she said that I was with Nazir on the night of the murder although
she never actually saw me. She was never charged even though she admitted
to handling the shotgun and burning Nazir's clothes.

I appealed against conviction
to the Court of Appeal. The appeal was heard by the Full Court on 23 September
1994 and was dismissed

I appealed on the grounds
that the learned judge wrongly fettered cross examination of one witness
Sunita Mehta (a friend of Nazir's) by counsel on my behalf. He wrongly
refused to permit a tape recording of her police interview to be played
to her in cross -examination in the presence of the jury. The tape recording
was made by D.S. Alexander on the 3 May 1991 other half-hour interview
by him under caution. That one evening before the snow in February 1991
Nazir had come to her flat in Slough and had then confessed to her that
he had shots a boy in a garage. That he had gone in second into the garage
carrying the gun. Whilst his accomplice, whom he did not name but described
as "the boy", had gone in first. He robbed the girl at the counter of
her takings and that he, Nazir, had shot one of the two boys in the back
as they lay down on the floor beside the counter. The gun going off accidentally.
Nazir's confession to Sunita Nehta was identical to the confession he
made to Marlene Thomas who gave evidence of it to the jury. There were
letters that Nazir had written to Marlene that were capable of providing
evidence in my case but they were not shown.

On the 8 July 1996 Sir
Anthony Dun-ant MP contacted the Rt. Hon. Michael Howard, the then Home
Secretary, asking him to refer my conviction to the Court of Appeal. My
solicitor JC Wroe had submitted scientific evidence in the form of analyses
of the height of the two men shown in the video tape recording of the
garage shop at the time of the shooting. They argued this new evidence
proved that I could not have been the gunman. This case was not progressed
by the Home Office; it was then transferred to the Criminal Case Review
Commission at the start of its operation in April 1997.

The Commission reviewed
the conviction and its investigation included analysis of the expert reports,
by Kalgate Imagery Bureau and Didier Madoc Jones of GMJ, submitted on
my behalf. Three experts were called upon by the Commission to analyse
the video recording, these were Kalagate Imagery Bureau, Mr Windsor of
Mask Technologies and the Forensic Science Service Digital Imaging Unit.
It is plain to see from all the attempts to obtain accurate height comparisons
of the two men shown in the video footage, that the first man to enter
the shop (Nazir) is taller than the second man. It is argued on my behalf
that all of the scientific analysis of the video shows that if Nazir was
the first man, as the prosecution have always alleged, then I could not
have been the second, as I am 5cm taller than Nazir.

On the 14 May 2002, the
Commission concluded that there were no grounds upon which my conviction
could be referred to the Court of Appeal. As the Commission does not consider
that, there is any real possibility of eliminating me from the scene with
any degree of certainty.

My opinion is that the
Commissions review was flawed and unfair and their witnesses simply set
out to discredit the evidence given on my behalf.

I have spent 12 years
in 'Category A' conditions for a murder I did not commit. When I was in
court, I heard so many lies told about me that you can imagine my disbelief
and shock when I was found guilty and given a life sentence. There was
no evidence against me only the word of Nazir and his girlfriend Mariene.
If I had been tried on my own most of the evidence would not have been
admissible. Nevertheless, because I was tried jointly with Nazir there
were many witnesses who were called to give evidence against Nazir. Unfortunately
through the back door, they also gave evidence against me. Unless I get
back to trial, I can't see me being released and that makes me very sad
indeed. I try not to think about it and just hope and pray that one day
the truth will come out and I will finally be released from this nightmare.

If there is anyone who
knows about or knows of an expert in the field of advanced Imagery Analysis
and Photogrammetry, Forensic Imagery, Mathematical technique of video
recordings and is able to clarify methodology variations in clinical gait
analysis. Could they please contact me?